The present invention relates to improvements in the manufacture of panels to add ornamentation and is particularly applicable to furniture panels. The panels may be used for cabinets, armoires, tables, chests, and various other items on which it is desired to display a decorated surface.
Throughout the history of furniture making, a variety of ornamentation techniques have been adopted, including the application of finishes, carving, printings, decals, and the like, to provide surface ornamentation on the panel. In recent decades, it has been desirable, in some cases, to provide a distressed appearance on items, which is achieved by various methods including whipping furniture items with chains or other techniques to intentionally indent and scour the surface. Such distressing techniques have been widely used and achieved commercial success. They have typically involved a certain amount of randomness in their application.
Carving is also known and has been used extensively, including carving using computer-numerically controlled (CNC) machines to achieve their results. Such CNC-carving has never previously been coupled with printing techniques, in a controlled fashion, to be able to reproduce on a mass-production basis, an antique look to furniture. As a result, the mass-production of furniture has, of this invention, not yielded a desired ornamented surface.
The present invention fulfills this need in the art by providing a furniture surface having a substrate, a printed image on the substrate, and a CNC-carved indentation in the substrate that provides a relief effect located in reference to the printed image so as to make a composite ornamentation on the substrate.
The substrate is preferably a solid wood substrate. However, engineered wood or plywood may be substituted.
The printed image is preferably a silk screened image. Particularly attractive effects may be obtained using a two-color image.
Typically, the substrate is new, and the composite ornamentation makes the substrate look antique.
In a preferred embodiment, the CNC-carved indentations are also embossed and are not sanded.
The invention also provides a method of ornamenting a furniture surface including, printing an image on a substrate, and automatically carving an indentation in the substrate that provides a relief effect located in reference to the printed image, so as to make a composite ornamentation on the substrate.
The printing may be silk screen printing, preferably printing at least two colors on the substrate.
The automatic carving is preferably CNC-carving and more preferably CNC-routing.
The automatic carving may include using an automatic carving machine to locate a reference point in the printed image and carving the indentation in the substrate at a location determined from the reference point, so that the relief effect location is coordinated to the printed image. The automatic carving may carve the indentations by movement of a cutter head in x, y, z and rotation directions determined in reference to the reference point in the printed image.
In a preferred embodiment, the indentation has a perimeter and the automatic carving carves the perimeter before a contour within the perimeter.
Preferably, the method includes a subsequent process of embossing the carved indentation. This may provide a texture to the indentation.
The method may also include applying finish and/or a decal to the printed, carved and embossed substrate.